Call it the Cinderella
rule: complex bank reforms cannot be agreed in Brussels until after midnight. So it will be this evening as ministers
reconvene to negotiate laws on how to shut down failing banks, a deal that
eluded them in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Over the last year, we
noted numerous times that valuations for defensive sectors like Utilities were
expanding to lofty levels.Because of
investors' quest for yield in a ZIRP world (zero interest rate policy), they
ended up placing a higher valuation on a low-growth, high-dividend paying
sector like Utilities over a higher-growth sector like Technology.As interest rates have risen recently, we've
seen a mass exodus out of defensives, and their P/E ratios have contracted to
go with it.

If Keynesians had made
a lot of bad predictions in recent years — if inflation or interest rates had
soared, if austerity had produced prosperity — the other side could go after
what we actually said and say.